Displaying posts published in

April 2021

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Breonna Taylor’s mother blasts Black Lives Matter movement Gustaf Kilander

By on April 19th, 2021

https://news.yahoo.com/breonna-taylor-mother-blasts-black-155635973.html

Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, blasted the Black Lives Matter movement in Louisville, Kentucky in a since-removed Facebook post.

“I have never personally dealt with BLM Louisville and personally have found them to be fraud [sic],” Ms Palmer wrote on Wednesday. A screenshot of the post was later published by a local media show.

She called Kentucky statehouse representative Attica Scott “another fraud”.

Ms Palmer gave credit to family, friends and local activists for supporting her family after the death of her daughter. Ms Taylor, who was 26, died following a police shooting in her home during the execution of a no-knock warrant.

Ms Scott has pushed for a ban on no-knock warrants since Ms Taylor’s death.

Ms Palmer said local activist Christopher 2x and other supporters had “never needed recognition”.

“I could walk in a room full of people who claim to be here for Breonna’s family who don’t even know who I am,” she added.

She criticised people who have raised money for Ms Taylor’s family without knowing them, writing: “I’ve watched y’all raise money on behalf of Breonna’s family who has never done a damn thing for us nor have we needed it or asked so Talk about fraud.

“It’s amazing how many people have lost focus Smdh. I’m a say this before I go I’m so sick of some of y’all and I was last anybody who needs it I’m with this enough is enough!!”

Continue reading →
CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

Enough Destruction and Deception Black America survived all of the deprivations of the pre-Civil War period. They survived Jim Crow. They survived the KKK. Now, they are engaged in self-destruction. (June 2020)

By on April 19th, 2021

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/71552-enough-destruction-and-deception-2020-06-19

By Dr. R.M. “Zeb” Zobenica, Capt. USMC (Ret.)

I am an old man tired of being lied about. I’m tired of watching people destroy the country that I love and that my parents and my immigrant grandparents loved. I’m tired of being told that I’m a racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, greedy, deplorable, irredeemable, gun-toting, Bible-clutching rube whose life-long achievements are due to “white privilege,” not to individual effort, a lifetime of study and learning, sacrifice, sound financial management, risk taking, sleepless nights, or concerns about employee well-being. I’m tired of media types and academics who opine that destroying our businesses is justified in the name of “social justice.”

Now, who am I? What’s my background? Why do I care? Why should you continue to read on?

I’m the grandson of immigrant Serbs who grew up in a hard scrabble mining town carved out of the forests of northern Minnesota and populated with people from over 30 nationalities.

Diversity was a fact of life, not social theory. The housing was barely functional. There were outhouses. Rural areas had no indoor plumbing. Central heat was uncommon. Yet, my grandfather loved his new nation. He was a poor miner, a subsistence farmer, and didn’t have “a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of,” but he and his family were free. Back in the old country, in August 1941, my great-grandparents and their entire extended families were exterminated by the Ustashe who had come to power in the newly declared Independent State of Croatia. However, on the Mesabi Iron Range, Serbians and Croatians lived side by side in harmony. They sent their sons off to World War II under the Stars and Stripes. They mourned their losses together at Catholic and Eastern Orthodox funerals. Old country massacres, old country injustices, and old country madness were to be left behind. The old country perpetrators may have escaped earthly justice, but they would have to face eternal judgement by the Creator.

It is against that background that kids of my generation grew up on the immigrant-laden Iron Range. A high value was placed on education and the schools were excellent.

Continue reading →
CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Critical Race Theory: What It Is and How to Fight It Christopher F. Rufo

By on April 19th, 2021

http://hillsdalecollegian.com/2021/04/rufo-exposes-critical-race-theory-in-lecture/
Christopher F. Rufo is founder and director of Battlefront, a public policy research center. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and a former Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. As executive director at the Documentary Foundation, he has directed four films for PBS, including most recently America Lost, which explores life in Youngstown, Ohio, Memphis, Tennessee, and Stockton, California. He is also a contributing editor of City Journal, where he covers topics including critical race theory, homelessness, addiction, and crime.

The following is adapted from a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on March 30, 2021.  Critical race theory is fast becoming America’s new institutional orthodoxy. Yet most Americans have never heard of it—and of those who have, many don’t understand it. It’s time for this to change. We need to know what it is so we can know how to fight it.

In explaining critical race theory, it helps to begin with a brief history of Marxism. Originally, the Marxist Left built its political program on the theory of class conflict. Marx believed that the primary characteristic of industrial societies was the imbalance of power between capitalists and workers. The solution to that imbalance, according to Marx, was revolution: the workers would eventually gain consciousness of their plight, seize the means of production, overthrow the capitalist class, and usher in a new socialist society.

During the 20th century, a number of regimes underwent Marxist-style revolutions, and each ended in disaster. Socialist governments in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Cuba, and elsewhere racked up a body count of nearly 100 million of their own people. They are remembered for their gulags, show trials, executions, and mass starvations. In practice, Marx’s ideas unleashed man’s darkest brutalities.

By the mid-1960s, Marxist intellectuals in the West had begun to acknowledge these failures. They recoiled at revelations of Soviet atrocities and came to realize that workers’ revolutions would never occur in Western Europe or the United States, where there were large middle classes and rapidly improving standards of living. Americans in particular had never developed a sense of class consciousness or class division. Most Americans believed in the American dream—the idea that they could transcend their origins through education, hard work, and good citizenship.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on April 18th, 2021

On May 12th,1948 President Harry Truman assembled his advisers at the White House to decide whether to recognize the state of Israel. Clark Clifford made the case for recognition. Secretary of State George Marshall led the opposition, Both were highly trusted officials. Truman weighed personal, political and strategic concerns. On May 14th he acted. America recognized the new state of Israel.

On May 14th Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion read the proclamation of nationhood. Striking the speaker’s table for emphasis, he announced, “The name of our state shall be Israel.” It was a gift to those Christians and Jews who worked and lobbied for Zionism.

In the decades since Israel keeps returning the gift in the immeasurable ways that the nation contributes to the well being, and hope, and technology and science that ameliorate suffering throughout the world.

Thank you Michael Ordman for your weekly dispatches. God Bless America and Israel. Happy birthday and L’chaim! rsk

On May 12th,1948 President Harry Truman assembled his advisers at the White House to decide whether to recognize the state of Israel. Clark Clifford made the case for recognition. Secretary of State George Marshall led the opposition, Both were highly trusted officials. Truman weighed personal, political and strategic concerns. On May 14th he acted. America recognized the new state of Israel.

On May 14th Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion read the proclamation of nationhood. Striking the speaker’s table for emphasis, he announced, “The name of our state shall be Israel.” It was a gift to those Christians and Jews who worked and lobbied for Zionism.

In the decades since Israel keeps returning the gift in the immeasurable ways that the nation contributes to the well being, and hope, and technology and science that ameliorate suffering throughout the world.

Thank you Michael Ordman for your weekly dispatches. God Bless America and Israel. Happy birthday and L’chaim!   rsk

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Vaccine even protects the unvaccinated. Unvaccinated children of Covid-19 vaccinated parents are far less likely to contract the virus. Researchers at Israel’s Technion and health company Maccabi used data from 223 Israeli communities to show each 20% increase in parental vaccination halves the incidence of child infection.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hope-for-herd-immunity-vaccines-shown-to-protect-israelis-who-dont-get-them/
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.26.21254394v2
 
How to control aging. Ben Gurion University scientist Dr Debra Toiber and her team have identified several genes involved in the aging process. Whereas SIRT6 helps repair DNA to promote healthy aging, other genes cause damage. Longevity can be extended, and damage reversed with targeted gene therapy and interventions.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/genes_aging.aspx  https://www.aging-us.com/article/202755
 
The hunger switch. Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with UK colleagues, have found that melanocortin 4 (MC4) receptor is the master switch for hunger in the brain. It is normally “on” (“I feel full”) until energy levels drop. Its discovery can help develop anti-obesity medications.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/304339
 
Brain cancer treatment breakthrough. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered a potential treatment for the aggressive brain cancer Glioblastoma. Over-secretion of the protein P-Selectin (SELP) boosts tumor growth. Inhibiting SELP slowed growth and stopped cancer cells migrating to the brain.
https://www.israel21c.org/cure-for-deadly-brain-cancer-may-be-on-its-way/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaWYYwbayUI
 
The impact of the microbiome on cancer. Israel’s MyBiotics (see here previously) is to partner Hadasit – the technology transfer arm of Hadassah Medical Center, to identify gut microbiome-based cancer therapies. They will study up to 100 melanoma patients treated with PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapies.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/mybiotics-hadassah-to-study-impact-of-microbiome-on-cancer-therapies/
 
Breakthrough cancer treatment device. Israel’s IceCure already has US FDA approval for its cryogenic (freezing) treatment of cancer (reported here previously). The latest FDA Breakthrough Device designation, however, will speed up procedures regarding permits for IceCure’s Prosense device to treat cancer patients.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/icecure-shares-up-as-tumor-freezing-tech-gets-fda-breakthrough-device-nod/
 
Home telemedicine system approved. Israel’s MyHomeDoc has received US FDA approval to add to its EU and Israeli certifications. The device has 4 embedded sensors to analyze and report lung, heart, and bowel sounds, otoscopy for the ear, oximeter for pulse rate and saturation, thermometer, throat and skin camera test.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3903190,00.html  https://www.my-homedoc.com/
 
Speech therapy for special needs. Israel’s Ampliospeech has developed a digital intervention platform for special education students. Originally addressing dyslexics, Amplio uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to improve the speech-language capabilities of all children with special needs.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3903092,00.html  https://www.ampliospeech.com/
 
Heart surgery for Iraqi baby. Volunteers at the Shevet Achim aid organization brought baby Hena from the minority Yazidis of Iraq, for life-saving heart treatment at Israel’s Sheba hospital. From a refugee camp in Iraq, Hena’s father said, “We are grateful to the State of Israel for helping us in these difficult circumstances.”
https://unitedwithisrael.org/yazidi-baby-from-iraq-brought-to-israel-for-life-saving-surgery/
 
Muslims and Jews save disabled woman. When a disabled woman suffered a heart attack at a care facility, three EMTs from United Hatzalah’s Mevaseret region worked together to save her life. They included Murad Barhom – a Muslim Arab who has had a home in the Jewish Kibbutz of Kiryat Anavim for nearly 40 years.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/299728
 
World’s kindest kidney donors. (TY UWI) Israeli charity Matnat Chaim (Gift of Life) has facilitated 1,003 live kidney transplants since 2009 from altruistic donors – people who are not related to their recipients. Israel has the highest per capita rate of people donating kidneys to strangers. (See also here for previous news.)
https://www.israel21c.org/israel-tops-world-in-kidney-donations-to-strangers/

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Psaki: Biden ‘Proud to Have’ UN Ambassador Who Called U.S. Founding Principles Racist “He is proud to have her in that position. She is not only qualified, but he believes she is exactly the right person in that role at this moment in time.”by Mary Chastain

By on April 18th, 2021

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/04/pskai-biden-proud-to-have-un-ambassador-who-called-u-s-founding-principles-racist/

UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield insisted that America has to acknowledge its own human rights failure before it rejoins the UN Human Rights Council. She claimed she has seen “how the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles.”

A journalist asked Press Secretary Jen Psaki about the comments, but I wish she had asked the second question first.

She first asked if Biden would remove Thomas-Greenfield, especially since she basically said what China said about the U.S.

Great way to imply the journalist is racist, Psaki:

Is the president going to remove an African-American woman with decades of experience in the foreign service who’s widely respected around the world from her position as ambassador to the UN? He is not. He is proud to have her in that position. She is not only qualified, but he believes she is exactly the right person in that role at this moment in time.

I have not seen her comments. I will say that there’s no question there has been a history of institutional racism in this country and that doesn’t require the UN ambassador to confirm that.

Continue reading →
IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Fauci admits Biden administration is flouting CDC guidance in border facilities “Obviously, everyone would like to see that situation fixed,” Fauci said in a tense exchange with House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). BY Daniel Payne

By on April 18th, 2021

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/tense-senate-exchange-fauci-admits-biden-admin-breaking-cdc-guidance-border

White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Thursday conceded in a tense exchange with Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise that the Biden administration is violating major Centers for Disease Control and Prevention coronavirus guidelines by packing countless illegal immigrants into relatively small facilities without enforcing social distancing or masking measures. 

The CDC has aggressively pushed those guidelines over the past year, directing that Americans should work to remain six feet apart from each other in public spaces and wear face coverings when away from the home. 

Images from U.S. border facilities over the past several weeks, however, have shown little enforcement of those guidelines among illegal immigrants detained amid the current surge of unlawful migration at the southern border.

At a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing on Thursday, Scalise —the House minority whip and the ranking member of the subcommittee — grilled both Fauci and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on the Biden administration’s COVID enforcement among illegal immigrants. 

Holding up pictures of densely packed immigration facilities, Scalise asked Fauci: “Dr. Fauci, does this look like social distancing to you that you require when you talk about six feet?”

“No,” Fauci replied. 

Holding up more photos of packed facilities, Scalise asked further: “You can see all of these young children who are next to each other six inches apart, many without masks — by the way, does that follow your guidance that you’ve issued?”

“No,” Fauci replied again.

Continue reading →
ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Arizona Senate to Start Major Audit of 2.1 Million 2020 Presidential Election Ballots By Samuel Allegri

By on April 18th, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/arizona-senate-to-start-major-audit-of-2-1-million-2020-presidential-election-ballots_3780224.html

The Arizona Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, is ready to start a major audit of 2.1 million ballots for the 2020 presidential election, with the recount will be done by hand this time.

The state Senate said in March they would be conducting a “broad and detailed” audit, adding that they will test voting machines, scan ballots, look for IT breaches, and perform a hand count.

The state-issued subpoenas needed in order to execute the audit have been pending since mid-December and were ruled as valid (pdf) on Feb. 25.

Since then, lawmakers have been working on the specifics for the audit. Karen Fann, the Arizona Senate president, told Just the News that the audit process will commence during the next week.

Fann said the state’s Republicans have faced “sabotage” by Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors and that the process has been hindered.

“The Maricopa BOS has refused to allow us to perform the audit at their facilities,” Fann said, “and has gone so far as to refusing to even answer simple questions such as ‘how are the ballots sequestered?’”

“It’s taken the Senate two and a half months to win in court to uphold our right to issue subpoenas for election materials and another 6 weeks of researching to select the audit team to perform the full forensic audit.”

She said previously that their intention was “never about overturning the election, it was about the integrity of the Arizona election system.”

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

Race-obsessed Brearley school claims victimhood when challenged By Andrea Widburg

By on April 18th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/04/raceobsessed_brearley_school_claims_victimhood_when_challenged.html

Andrew Gutmann, who was pulling his daughter out of Brearley, an expensive private school in New York (annual tuition $54,000), wrote an open letter explaining exactly what was wrong with its “anti-racist” racism. A walk through the school’s website and the school head’s response to Gutmann’s letter prove that, if anything, he understated how bad things really are there.

Brearley, in New York, caters to rich leftists. It has a cachet. From Jane Foley Fried, the head of the school, on down to every administrator and faculty member, everyone is highly credentialed.

On its “statement of beliefs” page, Brearley boasts that it “challenges girls of adventurous intellect and diverse backgrounds to think critically and creatively and prepares them for principled engagement in the world.” If one goes by the school’s response to Gutmann’s letter, there is no evidence that either the faculty or the students have any critical thinking skills.

The same page includes statements about Brearley’s “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and its being “Antiracist.” The school’s website also has a page dedicated to “Diversity and Equity.” It repeats the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and “Anti-racist” statements, but the important item is a lengthy calendar showing the energy and time the school dedicates to “diversity.”

There are constant meetings and seminars for parents and students, all of them led by various facilitators, and most of them divided along racial lines. I cannot urge you strongly enough to check out the calendar because it is a stunning example of the accuracy of Guttman’s claim that:

It cannot be stated strongly enough that Brearley’s obsession with race must stop. It should be abundantly clear to any thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way.

[snip]

I object to mandatory anti-racism training for parents, especially when presented by the rent-seeking charlatans of Pollyanna. These sessions, in both their content and delivery, are so sophomoric and simplistic, so unsophisticated and inane, that I would be embarrassed if they were taught to Brearley kindergarteners.

[snip]

I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness.

(Again, if you haven’t read Gutmann’s letter, you must — and then share it with others.)

Brearley responded with a letter from Principal Jane Fried. It demonstrated how the wokerati invariably cast themselves as victims. And I do mean victims: Fried speaks of physical and psychic terror as if Gutmann had threatened their lives rather than challenging their beliefs.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

When Ideology Is a Cover for Child Abuse By Madeleine Kearns *****

By on April 18th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/04/when-ideology-is-a-cover-for-child-abuse/?itm_campaign=headline-testing-when-ideology-is-a-cover-for-child-abuse

There are war crimes, and there are ‘culture war’ crimes.

 E ven in wars, there are standards. The United Nations defines “war crimes” as “violations of international humanitarian law (treaty or customary law) that incur individual criminal responsibility under international law.” By way of analogy, culture-war crimes constitute horrors done in the name of advancing some ideological agenda that would shock the conscience of any morally sane person, regardless of his or her political bent.

For instance, there are plenty of voices on the left (as well as on the right) who maintain that it is wrong to chemically castrate a child, stunt his natural growth, and risk his health and mental well-being by deceiving him about a fundamental aspect of his nature, i.e., his biological sex. And further, that it is wrong to subject a child to clinical experiments that will sterilize him and impair his sexual function, all because a widely contested and incoherent ideology demands that this be done.

There are also some voices on the right (as well as on the left) who think that their various ideological sacred cows are more important than preventing such abuse. Whatever the cover they choose to adopt — transgender ideology, “compassion,” business interests, “limited government” — their part in this medical scandal amounts to a culture-war crime.

Enter Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas, who earlier this month vetoed a bill prohibiting the prescribing of puberty-blocking drugs to gender-confused youth as well as prohibiting doctors from performing sex-change surgeries on minors. Hutchinson told CNN that this is about the Republican Party pursuing a “message of compassion.”

He is not the only one. As Isaac Schorr noted on the Corner earlier this week, Commentary magazine’s otherwise astute Noah Rothman thinks that “Asa Hutchinson Is Right” in vetoing that bill.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Officials: One Hundred Arrested in Brooklyn Center Riot, Emergency Curfew Put in Place By Brittany Bernstein

By on April 18th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/officials-one-hundred-arrested-in-brooklyn-center-riot-emergency-curfew-put-in-place/

Police implemented an emergency curfew in Brooklyn Center, Minn. on Friday and arrested an estimated 100 people as rioting broke out outside police headquarters in response to the police-shooting death of Daunte Wright, officials said.

City officials had attempted to forgo a curfew on Friday for the first time since protests began on Sunday when a Brooklyn Center police officer fatally shot 20-year-old Wright during a traffic stop. The officer, who officials said intended to discharge a Taser and not a handgun, has resigned and has been charged with second-degree manslaughter.

Mayor Mike Elliot had tried to “take a different approach” in not implementing a curfew, though rioting led officials to announce at 10:30 p.m. that a curfew would be put in place from 11 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday. 

The directive came after rioters breached a barrier surrounding the Brooklyn Center police department around 9:30 p.m., according to FOX 9 of Minneapolis. Police responded with flash bangs and pepper spray, pushing the group back so officials could repair the fence.

Continue reading →